


Sometimes We Take Out the Trash

by ahlvister



Series: sometimes we take out the trash - draft 1 [1]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/F, Freeform, Present Tense, but also looking back, sort of a backstory in story form
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 16:49:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8497804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahlvister/pseuds/ahlvister
Summary: "But we manage." Biavi looks back on her life and her choices.





	

 

My mother and father are busy fighting a war that has nothing to do with me. They are never home, and when they are, there’s an empty look to both of them. You can feel their love for the Republic is greater than both their love for each other and their love for me, and possibly more than both of those combined. 

I prefer to be alone, as the children my age are fascinated by the war going on. I have seen what it has done to the people fighting in it, and do not wish to pretend to be the hero. Heroes always die, after all, and I discover this for the first time when years pass and my mother does not return home and no one wants to tell me why.

In my teens, I turn to spice. Spice is easier than admitting you’re lonely, and being alone is easier than trying to make friends that will never understand you because you feel hollow inside. But the appeal of doing spice vanishes one day, for I finally discover a purpose: to follow in the footsteps of my parents, for the galaxy is still at war and despite my disillusionment with the war, I still believe the Republic is worth saving. (Well, that and my spice dealer died.)

I join the Grand Army of the Republic soon after I am able to enlist. I am assigned to Jenth Squad on Serenno, a small squadron and as much of a ragtag bunch of misfits as the military would ever allow. For the first time, I feel like I have found a family that is full of platonic love. We share many stories of where we came from and how we got here, and I remember each one as clear as it were yesterday. But there is more than platonic love there; I enter a secret relationship with the Mirialan demolitions expert, Vyria. We become engaged, and she plans on switching squads so we can be openly together. 

The whole squad is fighting the good fight against the Empire here, and we have a job to do, so we do it with as much gusto as we can manage. It begins to rain.

The rain falls on Serenno, and I am the first to fall, but I do not die; instead, I live with the scars of betrayal plain on my face. The rain continues to fall, and once the first shuttle is shot down, they begin to fall, one by one, until it’s our turn to fall to the ground in a sea of flames. I am the only one left. I am scarred all over my body, and I cannot move my leg, so it is removed and replaced with as good as the battlefield can manage, which is not particularly good. I am told by my superiors that I am lucky to have survived. I feel differently.

They want to reassign me to a different unit, but the ghosts of my squadmates’ faces as they died continue to haunt me in both my dreams and my reality. I run as far as I can go, until I can run no further. I sneak off on a ship headed to the Outer Rim.

The ship turns out to be with the Exchange, and when the crew finds me, they threaten me with death. In a few clicks, I emerge the victor, with a blaster to the head of the captain of the ship. They offer to talk to the Exchange sector chief since apparently I’m good at what I do. I simply know that this is better than whatever the Republic would have had in store for me, should I return. I am assigned to Tatooine. I probably would have preferred Nar Shaddaa, but honestly, the Republic would have found me there. Also Nar Shaddaa stinks of Hutt.

The Exchange on Tatooine gives me cutting-edge replacement parts and a new purpose, but they also take away my freedom. Any disobedience is threatened with death or turnover to the Republic, and it feels like I am a slave to them, though it is more akin to professional servitude. But the thing is, I serve willingly. I am a slave to my past, and there is no good future for me as long as I am here. Death seems like a release that’s too good for what I deserve. I live on cheap booze and bad, unsatisfying sex with various women I meet in various cantinas, or at least I do until I meet the Captain. 

She is looking for a Devaronian con-man who has messed with many people he should not have, including the Exchange. She sees an opportunity to find him, and I see an opportunity to leave Tatooine for good. So we begin to work together. At first, she doesn’t trust me, and the feeling is mutual. But I prove my worth through hard work and determination and resources that your run of the mill bounty hunter would never have. When everything's said and done, she offers me a place on her crew. The Exchange is not pleased with the termination of my contract, but nothing comes of it, at least not for awhile.

I attempt to get along with her partner in crime. Her name is Mako, and she has no family. There is a lot of initial strife there--she idolizes the Mandalorians, but my time in war obviously prevents me from feeling the same--but we manage. I tell her the stories I grew up with, and she listens intently and with great curiosity. Our first kiss happens suddenly during target practice, but while it feels so wrong at first (I am certain I am at least twice her age), it feels so right, like somehow we could be a family, too.

There is a Great Hunt to win, which distracts me from my feelings. Mako, the Captain, and I all go to eliminate the final target of the Hunt--a Jedi. I want to stick behind, for part of me wants to return home, despite the voice in my head that tells me I can’t and knows I can’t. However, I know that this is something I must do, at the very least for Mako. When we reach the Jedi, I down him after lots of preparation and luck, but despite the Captain’s urging, I let his padawan go. It is a mistake that comes back to haunt me later.

Mandalore offers to make the Captain one of his clan, as well as myself. I refuse bluntly and rudely, which I am proud to say was no mistake. I have honor of my own, but I don’t need to be a war-monger in order to have honor. The Captain, to my chagrin, agrees. We end up talking about it, as people in this galaxy tend to do when something comes up. It ends up in a fist fight. I lose, for she is a solid quarter of a meter taller than me--and while I’m pure muscle, so is she.

As it turns out, being a Mandalorian is like working for the Exchange--you trade in your freedom for access to better opportunities--or at least that is what I believe. Of course, not all people think the Mandalorians are bad, but I’ve got issues with them. The Mandalorians don’t understand war like I do. War is ugly; it leaves scars that don’t go away. 

Shortly afterwards, a young Mandalorian joins our crew, threatening my place with Mako. I am bitter and depressed, but she doesn't notice. Eventually the Captain steps in on me, Corellian whiskey in one hand and a blaster in the other, pointed towards myself, and she calls an intervention. She puts Mako and I in a room, and attempts to get us to talk. I do not wish to burden her with myself--I am far too old to make her happy, and she has a good life ahead of her with someone I hate with every fiber of my being--but the Captain sees something in me that I never have, and apparently so does Mako. We fall in love with each other for the probably third time, the kiss that ends that moment so tender that I can feel myself dissolve into it. Of course, the Mandalorian is jealous of me on multiple fronts, but I do not care. This is not about him. 

As it turns out, Mako has problems of her own to deal with, in addition to everything that’s happened with me. She is an SIS project--and she has family. But that family proves to be trouble, more trouble than it’s worth. Instead, we turn her main sister, Coral, in. The SIS agent proves to be grateful, and somehow recognizing me (it occurs to me we probably knew each other as kids), offers to tell me what happened to my father. Turns out he’s dead--for some reason, he spares me the details, thus making me an orphan for real. I am far too old to be an orphan, of course, but it feels more final when I say it that way.

For a while, we travel the galaxy and bring in large amounts of credits, much more than I had ever seen for much of my adult life. I save them carefully, hoping to someday build a life with Mako on that vacation planet with a beach that she talks so much about.

But the thing about wonderful things is that they don’t last. The Exchange puts a bounty on my head, and I am, for once in my life, afraid to die. I am afraid to lose what I have--my love, my friends, my life savings. Shortly afterwards, I become the Republic’s Most Wanted for my multiple crimes against the Republic. It is my worst nightmare. So we go on the run, but after a stop to Quesh, I am taken into Republic custody. I briefly wonder if this means that I am finally going home; as it turns out, I am taken to Belsavis in carbonite.

Supposedly, while I am gone, Varactyl makes arrangements with a Darth. She does his dirty work in exchange for my freedom. Republic target upon Republic target fall in the name of my freedom. By the time she gets to Belsavis, the second war of my lifetime is well underway. I am awoken to the sounds of blaster fire and screams of death. It brings me back to a place I never wanted to be at ever again. Varactyl has to pin me down for a moment, and Mako has to talk me back into the present. 

As I am brought with the team to down the Darth’s next target (I was brought up to speed as we trudged through the jungle), we discover a Houk that wishes to join our quest to rid the galaxy of the target in question. The Houk’s name is apparently Skadge, and the way he looks at us makes my blood boil and my skin crawl. We complete our task, intending to leave him behind on the planet (it is Mako’s idea, but I was inclined to agree), but he attempts to force his way onto our ship and out to the greater galaxy. Varactyl gets the last word, and I’m certain he curses us as he suffocates in the darkness of space.

I stay behind with Torian to recuperate after my ordeals on Belsavis, as the rest of the team touches down on Voss. As it turns out Torian is actually a friendly dude, and I learn more about Mandalorians and Mandalorian culture than I ever really cared to learn. In return, I teach him about growing grey gabaki and about the inner workings of the Exchange. After a few days, we are restless, so Torian and I decide to leave Blizz by himself on the ship and go to the cantina in Voss-Ka. 

This proves to be a mistake, as I (along with Torian) am captured yet again--this time by the Exchange. We are taken to some planet (my memory of that time is fuzzy), where we are tied up and not fed or given much space to move for what felt like forever. As we are delirious, we start talking about the crew, and Torian reveals to me that he’s never loved Mako or even been slightly attracted to her. As it turns out, he’s been in love with Captain Varactyl for about a year, but she hasn’t looked at him the way he does her. I am relieved, but also feel some level of sympathy, as I remember what that feels like. The crew arrives as we are nearly starved to death, and in my fuzzy memory of that time I think I hear Varactyl cry as she pulls the unconscious Torian to the ship.

Corellia is where the fact that we are at war again really hits the crew; for me, the galaxy has been at war since the day I was born. Not only that, but it reminds me of Coruscant, my homeworld. It is harrowing to see the destruction of a populated planet so thoroughly by the Empire. Darth Tormen is there when I meet him in person for the first time, and it takes everything I have not to try and fight him right there. In the end, however, we down the person who framed us, and Darth Tormen twists Varactyl’s arm into going after the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. Or maybe Varactyl twisted my arm into going along with it at first.

We fight the elite guard of the Supreme Chancellor to get to him, as well as a smuggler and his crew. Supreme Chancellor Dorian Janarus waits for us when we get there, surprisingly calm considering how armed both I and the Captain are. Varactyl tenses up, and I speak with him about the terms of our agreement. Turns out, though this would have been fairly obvious, that he knew what we were up to. After several minutes of shouting at each other, and a few punches thrown (I won the fight this time, by the way), Varactyl and I finally agree on something: we decide to go with the Supreme Chancellor’s idea and take down Darth Tormen. But before we leave, I ask about my uncle, to which he smiles sadly; the look in his eyes told me more than I ever wanted to know.

Varactyl and I head to face down Darth Tormen. It’s hard, fighting a Darth and struggling to stay alive. There’s a lot that you have to do to avoid their immense power and I am in awe by it, even though I am convinced that Darth Tormen was a monster. I am not afraid to speak ill of the dead. In the end, Varactyl is the one to kill him. Fitting, given that she was the one who had to deal with him the most. I wish I could have done it myself, but I’m glad she got her chance.

The crew celebrates on Rishi after the defeat of Darth Tormen, and while the crew goes their own separate ways afterwards, Mako and I stay behind to build a home. It isn’t perfect--pirates make a mess of Rishi and the sounds of the cantina brawls are far too loud for my liking--but we manage. We are happy, and for once in my kriffing life, I am at peace.

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically the overview of how the ‘verse goes (the trash verse). I know that Torian being abducted normally happens after Belsavis, but since things are different given that Biavi is recruited instead of Skadge in the trash verse, the timeline gets adjusted somewhat. Plus it fits better with the other fics I’ve written in the verse so yeah


End file.
